Cop union rips ADAs’ ‘slander’
Fires back at Bx. letter
The NYPD detectives union is outraged after a group of Bronx prosecutors wrote a letter denouncing police conduct during the George Floyd protests.
In an open letter to Bronx District Attorney Darcel Clark, Detectives’ Endowment Association President Paul DiGiacomo said his union no longer wanted to work with the 56 prosecutors who wrote the scathing missive last week.
“Given their words and their abject disdain for mem- bers of the NYPD, they can no longer effectively and fairly perform their duties,” DiGiacomo wrote in the June 25 letter posted to the union’s Web site and addressed to Clark (right).
“They have made any working relationship between themselves and members of the DEA unimaginable.”
DiGiacomo goes on to say that the 35 named and 21 anonymous Bronx assistant district attorneys who signed the letter accusing the NYPD of fostering a culture of violence had all but abandoned their roles as community guardians.
The prosecutors’ letter, also addressed to Clark, said, “This office must do more to contend with the reality of police brutality in The Bronx, beginning with an unequivocal condemnation of the NYPD’s unwarranted use of violence.”
DiGiacomo blasted the letter’s claims as “slanderous” and said it was written by a group of inexperienced prosecutors, a majority of whom had been in the office for less than three years.
“While members of your office sat safely at home behind their computer screens writing a letter maligning the NYPD, and falsely claiming that police are perpetrating hate crimes against citizens, our members did not have the luxury of sheltering at home,” the union boss wrote.
“Our detectives have been out every day being assaulted merely because of the uniform they wear. It is our members who have had Molotov cocktails launched into their vehicles, rocks and bricks thrown at their faces, baseball bats aimed at their heads, and their RMPs [radio motor patrol cars] set ablaze.”
The Bronx suffered significant looting amid protests ignited by the death of Floyd in Minnesota police custody.
The prosecutors’ letter accused the NYPD of using excessive force against peaceful protesters by driving SUVs through an encircling crowd, trapping thousands of them on the Manhattan Bridge and using pepper spray on them.
“In short, the NYPD heard our city asking police to stop killing black people and responded with more force and violence than many of us, privileged or not, have ever witnessed first-hand,” the prosecutors’ letter read.
Clark’s office didn’t immediately return a request for comment.